


A hundred million suns and stars

by coalitiongirl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: New Jedi Order Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: New Republic Era - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 01:23:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Time marches on, and too many things are left unsaid.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A hundred million suns and stars

The galaxy rotates around Shada D’ukal, and she adapts to all it brings. She’s been trained to react to every situation she might possibly encounter, every person and attack and unexpected snag in a plan. Mistryl pride themselves in their readiness, in their flexibility even amongst a people that would have their culture rigid and unchanging, and Shada may have been rejected from their midst but she hasn’t forgotten her training. More often than not, her whip-sharp reactive instincts come into play even in her new work with Karrde’s intelligence agency, and rarely does she encounter a situation she can’t handle.

She doesn’t know how to react to Karrde.

Not the respect he demonstrates for her each time she enters a room, attentive eyes on her and his focus solely on what she has to say. Not the way he turns a silent, deceptively mild gaze toward the occasional purveyor of a leer or crude remark on whatever backwater planet they’re visiting at the moment. Not the way she catches him watching her as she walks away but still he never, ever makes physical contact with her.

No matter how much she quietly craves it, and that’s the worst part of all. Her own feelings, the way he flusters her to the point where she nearly forgets her perfect professionalism several times a day. The way she can’t hide a smile when he’s smiling, the way her body warms at his recognition of her talents. The way she can’t stop watching him, either.

It’s sentimentality, some misplaced affection for the man who’d been with her when her life had shattered and who’d picked up the pieces before they’d made it to the ground. It’s useless and only slows her down, and she’s better off without these feelings.

She could eradicate them in an instant, she tells herself, and it keeps her from trying to do so for another day.

\--

He likes his women decorative and deadly, pretty features wrapped in pretty bodies that would disarm and destroy an unsuspecting foe without the secretive smile ever leaving their faces. He also likes these women as his lieutenants, loyal and trustworthy and standing at his side, and he knows better than to mix business and pleasure. It’s a contradiction that he’s never dwelled on before, and he has wisely taken his pleasures elsewhere.

Until now, when it’s Shada D’ukal and for the first time in a lifetime spent making difficult decisions with decisive self-awareness, he’s at a loss. The attraction is stronger than ever before, and he longs to compromise his own standards, to allow a proposition or an initial query, at the least, to act on his desires.

She is enigmatic at the least, a closed book at the greatest; but he has also seen her at her worst, closest to breakdown as a woman as put together and readily adaptive as she can ever be, and even her silence speaks volumes to him now. Even a quiet quirk of her lips as they watch the viewscreen of the _Wild Karrde_ together is enough to make him crave her more. Even the quiet way she watches him, as alert as a bodyguard but with a fondness that’s wholly unnecessary, is rife with promise for something more, whether she’s aware of it or not.

And throughout, there’s a creeping awareness that he won’t be able to maintain their work relationship for much longer, not when he can think of little else when she’s around. The question is not _will I_ for him anymore, only _when_.

He fears that he’ll lose more than he can afford to surrender then.

\--

One mission too many spent wrapped around Karrde in a grimy tapcafe, one touch too long for any observers, one fight too exhilarating for her to think straight; and they’re falling into bed together, skin on skin and heated exhales and burning eyes and lips and hearts, lost in a whirlpool of desire to which Shada has finally given up resistance.

There are hooded glances in the morning and an overall air of dual shame and satisfaction, and Karrde tells her he wishes he could regret the night; which is, in fact, more perplexing than anything else he could have said. Of course. She expects no less from a man who could remain calm with a Star Destroyer breathing down his neck and still negotiate his way to survival and come out with a profit.

But where it leaves them, she doesn’t know, and it’s a struggle to keep from staring at him when they rendezvous with the ship again, when they talk business with others (always business, and his eyes scorch her with promises she knows would destroy them), when they find themselves alone.

And sooner than she’d suspected, he’s in her bed one night after the latter, and then she’s in his the next time, and they’ve fallen into a routine that should suit her just fine, sharing a bed with little discussion of the logistics of it all.

By day they are the consummate professionals, making no indication of any relationship beyond associates, and she thinks that this is exactly what she wants.

Except at night, when he’s asleep and she’s left staring at the ceiling, entwined in his arms, wondering why she feels so dissatisfied with this development. 

\--

It’s easier than he’d ever thought it would be, courting Shada. There are quiet snags and arguments, but never do they contradict the nature of their relationship or what they have already. He’d expected it to be a challenge because everything about her is a challenge, but instead it’s calm and professional and passionate and she is never the weakness he’d feared.

It bewilders a man who’s long beyond bewilderment, and on occasion, he entertains sneaking suspicions that this isn’t the ideal relationship he’s desired.

And yet it endures for years, through crises and war and the knowing eyes of his crew. He feels no judgment- Shada is capable and respected and there is no bias in his decisions, and when she graduates from second-in-command to partner there are no objections or snide remarks. 

When they part for the first time that heralds many more months apart, much fewer missions as a team, he can’t contain his quiet dismay completely. And Shada smirks at him, still loose-limbed and careless from their last private moments together, and tells him not to miss her too much. It’s a promise and a question at once, and when he tightens their handshake and smiles genially, that’s the only response he can give her.

\--

Time has always seemed static for her, never-changing as the world changes around her. She’d spent so long in training, then over a decade with Mazzic, and she’d been untouched, never moved beyond her self-image and personal expectations. But five years with Karrde, and she’s in a position of authority beyond simple bodyguard, captaining ships and innovating and strategizing new missives. 

And her hair is turning white as time comes for her at last, and she’s staring at herself in the mirror each morning, tugging at it and considering dyeing it and wondering how she’d gotten so old.

She doesn’t dye it in the end. She’s well trained enough to know the strength that can come from using all of your appearance to your advantage, even the constant reminder that she won’t live forever. And the first time Karrde sees her after the white becomes more prominent, he tugs his own hair and strokes hers and murmurs that they’re a matched pair.

His hand is a phantom on the side of her face for days, long after she leaves her bed and heads out to Yavin Four for a group transport, after she loses her command and is forced to escape with only her crew, after Karrde stares at her across a viewscreen as though she is his world.

For a moment, it feels almost as though she is.

\--

He’s used the term “affection” to describe his reaction to Shada up until now. A great deal of his success over time can be easily traced to his ability to compartmentalize his feelings, to put aside passion in favor of even-tempered thoughtfulness. And Shada could potentially be a weakness, had he openly placed more stock in their relationship beyond affection and desire.

She has never expressed a desire for more than what they have and on occasion he finds himself wishing that she would, that she would tell him what’s going on behind that smooth, porcelain face. That he could fulfill it, because he’s beginning to notice just how old they’re getting, and how things that never mattered are coming to the forefront. 

_Love_. It’s one step further than he’d ever expected, but with Shada it’s natural, even when it’s only in his mind. He makes love to her a hundred times and she never acknowledges that something has changed, and only then can he concede that nothing has changed. He’s loved her all along, regardless of what professionalism he’s dressed it up as until now.

Too much time has been wasted, too many moments lost (though he finds that he can’t regret all those wordless moments of before) and he’s finally through with self-deception and locking away weakness for the potential of joy.

\--

He loves her. 

He delights in telling her daily (nightly, now that they’re together on the _Wild Karrde_ once more) and it’s that thing that’s been missing all along, the easy acknowledgement of feelings that run deeper than lust. It’s what she’s craved without knowing it, what she’s needed from him all along, and she should feel fulfilled in this at last.

Instead she feels suffocated, terrified, desperate to lash out but she doesn’t know at whom. He craves the same love from her and she’s certain she doesn’t know how to express it, not after a lifetime of repression. A lifetime of holding back, and she isn’t certain she’s capable of love anymore, though the glow that fills her at his admission is undeniable.

And so they continue on, attentive eyes and quiet smirks and nights in the room that had long been _their_ room, and he never presses for more that she won’t give him. And this is domesticity, the last kind of life she’s dreamed of since he’d first stepped forward after her battle with Tierce and given her a future, and it takes too many years for her to accept that reality.

They never marry- she thinks he might be the marrying type, despite his hasty objections, but she’s yet uncomfortable with the idea decades after she’d been torn from Emberlene. They never have children- they’re both beyond that age, she knows, and Talon has found potential successors beyond her among the next generation of crewmen.

They’re barely a blip in the passing of the galaxy around them, and no fireworks erupt or planets move when she finally admits that she loves him, years later. Nothing changes except his smile gets a bit lighter and his kisses a bit longer.

But she is content at last, in this tiny corner of world and time that they’ve found together. Talon Karrde and Shada D’ukal have made a difference, perhaps, in the galactic scheme of things. But who they are- what they are together- that’s only theirs.

And so they remain.


End file.
